Long Lost
by Ashura
Summary: An odd little GW post-war mystery series. AU. Relena uncovers a mystery in Quatre's past. A bit of angst, a bit of fluff, a bit of humour, a little romance, all mixed in with a plotline I really hope you haven't seen before! Give it a try, and tell me
1. Prologue

Long Lost

NOTE: When Relena tried to get into the ball where she shot at Lady Une, one of the guests thought at first that she was her mother, and called in surprise, "Katrina?" This popped into my head, along with a lot of other pieces that seemed to form a whole puzzle. Thus, this "What If" story. It's a little weird, but I hope you enjoy it. It's a Quatre and Relena story, mostly--note, NOT a 4xR--they're not together, that would be gross. They're just the main characters.

Ashura 

*********

Long Lost

Disclaimer: I still don't own GW or any of its characters. I tried, but Evilnmalice outbid me. (Fortunately it didn't pay up, so it doesn't own them either.)

Warnings: None

Pairings: so far, only 3x4, we'll see how things develop

Archive: Desolation Angels: http://www.dreamwater.net/ashura

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Prologue: Dust and Shadows

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A.C. 197

Dust, as unbroken as new snow, coated the halls and rooms and everything in them. Cobwebs clung to the corners of smoke-stained ceilings, long since abandoned by whatever wove them--the once-great house was now as desolate and empty as a tomb. 

In a way, a tomb it was--a grave for the childish hopes and memories of the only two of its children to survive its fall. They woke it now, disturbed its silent slumber with the soft tread of their footfalls and the creak of aged doors.

"So that was my father." Relena stared up at the portrait, its colour dulled from fire and fading, her arms crossed over her chest. "What was he like?"

"A good man," Zechs answered honestly. He did no more than glance at the tired, kind-eyed face staring down at them from the wall; he had made his peace, or failed to, long ago. "Idealistic, but you already know that. Warm, sometimes playful. He loved us. You, me, our mother."

"Our mother," Relena sighed. Another face she had never seen--not even flashes, or glimpses of long-dead memory appearing in her sleep. She thought there should have been /something/. "Is there a picture of her?"

"It burned," Zechs answered flatly. "Most of them did." The only portraits even recognisable were of his father and himself, but at the disappointment in her eyes, he sighed. "I know where a picture might be. Come, I'll show you."

He led her through the quiet hallways, where the walls themselves seemed to be watching the intruders in their midst, into a small office that while less damaged by the fire than the rest, made up for it with extra inches of dust. It was small, had probably once been cozy, with a small fireplace and antique desk. He brushed the dust from the desk with a gloved hand, tugging lightly at a drawer in its side.

It was locked, but the mechanism was so old and dry that it cracked at even the light pressure, and he slid it open. A small stack of papers was folded inside, and he lifted them out gently, lying them atop the desk where he and Relena could see them.

She unfolded them gingerly, their browned creases protesting the touch, til she uncovered what she sought--Zechs heard her gasp, holding the picture at eye-level in stunned disbelief.

"Zechs," she asked calmly, only the slightest tremble in her voice, "is this our mother?"

A glance at the photo confirmed it, and he nodded. "Yes."

"I don't remember her," Relena continued, her voice subdued. 

Zechs rested a hand gently on her shoulder. "You wouldn't," he explained softly. "She died when you were less than a year old. If you don't remember the Darliens adopting you, you wouldn't remember Mother."

A flash of something, he wasn't certain what, across Relena's face. "How did she die?"

He frowned. "I don't remember. That is, I don't think Father ever told me, except that she was sick....Relena, are you all right?"

She nodded, more instinct than honesty. "Of course. I just wonder--is it all right if I take this with me?"

Zechs shrugged, nodded. "Of course, Lena, if it's important to you." He paused, shifting uncomfortably, and finished, "If you're done...we should go. We've been here too long." //And the memories are too much for me, little sister, I cannot stay.//

She slipped the photo into her pocket with a nod, and followed him outside. She could see the need to leave in his eyes before he mentioned it, had noticed the way the old house overwhelmed him from his posture the moment they stepped inside. So she waited until they were on their way home, and he was engaged in conversation with Lucrezia Noin, before she slid the picture out to look at again.

//I'm surprised you didn't notice, Zechs,// she thought, then corrected her own mental evaluation. //No, I suppose I don't, really. You never really looked at them, the way I did. But how could I not see? And now that I know it...what do I do?"

A pair of pale blue eyes, the soft clear aqua of the shallowest parts of the sea, stared back at her unanswering from the wrinkled photograph, framed by a halo of wispy golden hair.


	2. Chapter 1

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Long Lost

Disclaimer: I still don't own GW or any of its characters. I tried, but Evilnmalice outbid me. (Fortunately it didn't pay up, so it doesn't own them either.)

Warnings: None

Pairings: so far, only 3x4, we'll see how things develop

Archive: Desolation Angels: http://www.dreamwater.net/ashura

**********

Chapter 1: Puzzle Pieces

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Quatre paced to the window, peered out the corner of the curtain for the twelfth time in as many minutes, and threw himself impatiently onto the sofa with a sigh. Iria, curled in a chair near the fireplace with a book on her lap, let a chuckle escape.

"Patience, Quatre, patience," she challenged laughingly. "Staring out the window's not going to make her get here any faster."

"I know." He rolled onto his back on the sofa, staring up at the ceiling mournfully. "But--I've got butterflies in my stomach, Iria, just from the way her voice sounded." He laughed ruefully as a slender hand tangled in the trim of the Persian rug spread out on the floor. "I wish Trowa was here, I feel like I'm going to explode."

"I think," Iria said dryly, "that those are two separate problems, little brother."

Quatre tossed a pillow at her, wrinkling his nose as it bounced off her head. One thing a Gundam pilot could be counted on for was good aim. "That's not what I meant and you know it."

"Aa," Iria conceded. "Although I notice you're not denying it, either." 

Quatre groaned and buried his head in the remaining cushions. "No, I'm not denying it, now don't be mean. I've been less nervous about going to war, Iria--do you know what it takes for a Gundam pilot to get butterflies?"

Iria didn't even look up from her book. "Mm-hmm. Tall, quiet, brown hair, green eyes, can do a triple backflip from the garden wall and land on his feet." 

"You're no help," Quatre grumbled, abandoning the couch to peek out the window again. "Putting pictures like that in my head when I'm not likely to see Trowa for another month. Oh!! There she is!" He watched the car pull up the drive for a heartbeat or two, then grinned at his sister over his shoulder. "I'm glad she got rid of that awful pink thing. I even like pink, but for a /car/...?" His nervous monologue continued as he fluttered out the door, and down the hall to greet his guest, leaving Iria laughing softly into her book.

Relena, like all of the pilots, had grown taller in the two years since the war had first erupted. On Dorothy's (remarkably good) advice, she had highlighted her hair with streaks of gold, and taken to wearing lipstick. Her face had left behind the cherubic roundness of childhood as the rest of her had blossomed into at least a sophisticated curvaceousness. Once her attention had turned from wars and battles, Dorothy had proven to be a good friend and a surprisingly warm person. She'd made Relena her project, displaying her proudly to the pilots and their friends whenever they saw each other. Quatre got the idea she'd been through Relena's wardrobe with some thoroughness as well, because the dowdy, shapeless ensembles and childish pastels had been replaced with darker, more vibrant colours as time went on. It was a change he approved of, though Duo had told him he was biased. He remembered the discussion well--they were sharing a bottle of wine on Duo's living room floor. Heero had been unable to comprehend how they noticed trivial things like Relena's wardrobe, let alone found it interesting discussion. Trowa had just smiled affectionately. 

All of which brought him back to the moment, where Relena was standing in his doorway in jeans and a blue sweater, her hair tied back in a ponytail that bobbed behind her head. "Come in," he told her, with very little preamble, and she slipped inside. She looked--and felt--nervous. "Can I get you something..? Cup of tea, glass of wine..?"

She nodded, tense but pleasant. "Wine would be great, if you don't mind--I'm nervous, Quatre. Though I guess you probably know that already, don't you?" She smiled ruefully as he nodded assent. She'd always been the one who had the hardest time acclimatising to the idea that he could feel what the rest of them did.

Despite the butterflies still doing their own triple-standing-backflips in his stomach, Quatre did his best to make small talk and put her at ease as he poured the wine, handed her a glass, and led her back to the sitting-room Iria had discreetly vacated. She curled into the fireside chair, her eyes momentarily closing as she took a long breath, forcing herself calm. Quatre perched opposite her, on his favourite sofa.

"So..Relena," he began finally, when he thought the butterflies were about to transform into dragons and burst out of his chest, "you sounded troubled, when you called." That was an understatement. "What's on your mind?"

"Do you remember your mother?" she blurted.

She saw the flash of pain in his eyes as he shook his head. "She died having me, Relena, I thought--I thought you knew that." A slight shrug, barely more than a ripple of his slender shoulders, and he forced his composure again. "Why?"

Relena's fingers clenched around the stem of her glass, her eyes searching the amber liquid for answers she couldn't provide. "Have you ever seen pictures of her, though? Or...heard anything about her?"

It was apparent to Quatre that this was leading up to whatever she'd come over to discuss, so he answered honestly. "Pictures, yes. My father had one on his desk when I was little. I don't know too much about her, though. Her--her name was Quatrina; I was named for her. Everyone says she was very sweet, but they would never talk to me about her. It was like there was a big secret." His head fell back onto the arm of the couch. "Well--there was, I guess, it was that I killed her. Nobody wanted to tell me that. They told me I was a test tube baby til I found out for myself." His confession complete, his pale eyes sought Relena's again and he repeated, "Why?"

Relena didn't answer immediately, instead she reached for her purse. Quatre watched her, willing himself to be patient as she drew a wrinkled photo from the leather bag. "Quatre," she asked, nervously, her voice almost too soft to her, "is this a picture of her?"

He rolled off the sofa to reach for the picture, unfolding it to see his own aquamarine eyes staring back at him. Shock momentarily strangled his curiosity as well as his voice, and Relena just watched him, wide-eyed, until he nodded. "Yes. Yes, it is. Why--where did you get this?"

She slid to the floor to kneel next to him, her fingers trembling as she reached for the photograph. "It's my mother," she answered hoarsely. "Katrina Peacecraft of the Sanq Kingdom."

*******

TBC


	3. Chapter 2

*********

Long Lost

Disclaimer: I still don't own GW or any of its characters. I tried, but Evilnmalice outbid me. (Fortunately it didn't pay up, so it doesn't own them either.)

Warnings: None

Pairings: so far, only 3x4, we'll see how things develop

Archive: Desolation Angels.

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Chapter Two: Fragments of Mystery

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The issue, for Quatre, who was currently engaged in pacing back and forth across the thick Persian rug in the sitting room, was not that he had a sister. He already had twenty-nine of those, fully half of whom he probably wouldn't recognise in a crowd; one more hardly made a difference.

It was the story running beneath the surface that had him tied up in knots. 

He'd known for a long time that all of his sisters were half-siblings to some degree or other; test tube babies who shared the same biological father but came from a variety of mothers' egg cells. His own mother, Quatrina, had refused this method of childbirth, despite the difficulties inherent in having babies in space at the time, and thus had died in birthing him. None of this had been easy for Quatre to come to grips with at the time, but time, war, and inability to change the past had worked their magic til he no longer worried over it. 

Now, though, it was all returning, and with it came speculation. Relena was older than he, if by less than a year. What would have made the Queen of the Sanq Kingdom leave her home, her people, and her new baby daughter and flee to the space colonies--only long enough to have another baby to the leader of said colony? She couldn't have been there for more than a month before conceiving him. 

He sank onto the sofa and dropped his head into his hands, rubbing fists into weary eyes. The more he learned about them, the more he felt he didn't know his family at all.

Relena, he found, had known even less than he did. The Sanq Kingdom had fallen when she was too little to remember it, and she had been adopted by Vice Foreign Minister Darlien. She hadn't known she /was/ a Peacecraft until he imparted the secret to her with his dying breath, and she hadn't wanted to believe it even then. She and Zechs had returned to the ruins of their ancestral home, to make peace with it and lay the ghosts to rest. Zechs had found the picture for her, because she'd never seen her mother, and as soon as she laid eyes on it, she'd recognised Quatre's features staring back at her.

It had shaken her as much as it had him, and she called him almost immediately. That call had led to the previous night's visit, when she showed him the picture and he confirmed their mother's identity.

Neither of them were sure what to do next. While they had tentatively suggested forgetting the entire matter and live on in pretense of ignorance, neither really considered it. There were too many unanswered questions, secrets lying hidden beneath the veneer of idealistic respectability claimed by both eminent pacifist families. They had uncovered a mystery, the only path to peace of mind was to solve it.

Relena had returned home that morning, promising that now her suspicions were confirmed, she would go hunting for clues. Quatre, remembering how effective Relena could be when she was being persistent, held onto the faith that she'd uncover something. 

He promised to do the same, which is why he was pacing, impatient, waiting for Iria.

It was after lunchtime by the time she arrived, troubled enough by the disquiet in his face and voice that she spared him the usual teasing barbs she greeted him with. "All right, Quatre," she asked, settling into the fireside chair, "what's the matter?"

"I need to know whatever you remember about my mother," he answered.

It startled her, though she hid it well, and he heard the word 'Why?' almost escape her lips til she bit it back. A sigh, then, her eyes closing briefly as she summoned old memories. "Not very much. I was your age, Quatre, and on my way to university back on Earth. I only really talked to her once." He waited, silent, til she continued. "All right, I'll try. I remember when Father first brought her home--she was very quiet, and a little sad I think. She mostly kept to the house, which is why I didn't see much of her. Before I left for Earth I asked her what it was like there, that was the only conversation we ever had. She said it was beautiful, but torn up by war. I kind of got the idea she'd been trying to escape it." One shoulder quirked in an apologetic shrug. "I'm sorry, Quatre, that really is all I know. I couldn't get to know her any better--I was gone that year, and when I got back she was gone and there you were."

Quatre nodded. It was what he'd expected, no more and no less. "Thanks."

"Quatre..." Iria leaned forward in the chair, resting her chin on folded hands. "What's all this about? Is it something to do with Relena's coming yesterday?"

He shrugged. "Yes...I'll explain it all to you once I get it figured out for myself." He'd been perched on the arm of the sofa, now he let himself fall backward onto it, sprawling. He needed to clear his head, he decided. Run through his options with someone who could convince him he was overreacting, calm his whirling mind, and help him decide on a suitable, sensible course of action. He had a distinct preference as to who that someone could be. "Iria..?"

"Yes, you should go talk it over, no, he won't mind, and he forwarded a new contact number yesterday," his sister answered without ever hearing the question. "Go get packed, I'll work out the flight arrangements."

"Am I that transparent?" Quatre asked, laughing. Even though Trowa always made sure Quatre could reach him, in case there was an emergency, he'd never had to use the information before. 

And while this didn't quite qualify as an emergency, he was certain Iria was right. Trowa was hardly likely to object to the visit. And even if he hadn't been so desperate for his lover to help put his head back on straight, it would have been a good excuse, wouldn't it? He practically skipped to his room, and started packing.


	4. Chapter 3

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Long Lost

Disclaimer: I still don't own GW or any of its characters. I tried, but Evilnmalice outbid me. (Fortunately it didn't pay up, so it doesn't own them either.)

Warnings: None

Pairings: so far, only 3x4, we'll see how things develop

Archive: Desolation Angels.

***********

Chapter Three: Confidences

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"Miss Noin." It had taken most of the afternoon to get her alone, but Relena had been persistent, and determined not to involve her brother unless, or until, it became absolutely necessary.

"What is it?" The woman, who Relena expected would be her sister in the not too distant future, looked up from the letter she was writing expectantly.

"I wondered," Relena asked, "if you know anything about my mother."

It was clearly not a query Noin had been expecting, and she veiled surprise as she shook her head. "Not really, no. She died when you were so young...I wasn't fighting for the Sanq Kingdom for a good while. Why?"

Relena slid the picture from her purse and thrust it out impulsively. Noin, who had worked closely with Quatre far more than Zechs had, needed no further explanation. Her eyes widened, as she took the photo gingerly from Relena's hand. "Oh dear," she said simply, staring at the photograph for a long moment as if to confirm what she already saw as plain. "Have you asked Quatre..?"

Relena nodded. "Yes. It's true." Noin sighed, and Relena crouched on the floor at her feet. "So you see why I need to know. What happened to make her leave..?"

Noin shook her head sadly. "Relena, I was four. It's hardly the sort of thing they would have made public, let alone told children." She sighed, tangling long fingers pensively in her hair. "Why don't you ask Peygan?"

"Because," Relena grumbled, "he's too busy protecting me to ever give me a straight answer." She tossed her hair, frustrated, and sighed. "I will ask him. I'll go back home tomorrow and ask him then."

Zechs returned then, and Relena excused herself for bed. A part of her still wondered why she felt the need to attach herself to her birth family at all. The parents who'd raised her, loved her, done their best to protect her--the ones she grew up calling "Mother" and "Father", those were the people she'd felt close to. The Peacecraft monarchy had ended when she was too young to remember it. Her mother, it seemed, had abandoned her practically at birth, and her father had given her away. Zechs had done his best to sever his own ties, though they were both making an effort to get to know one another as siblings. 

But wouldn't it be simpler if she and Quatre just pretended she'd never found that picture?

Scenarios ran through her mind as she brushed out her hair, staring thoughtfully into the mirror without ever really seeing herself in it. It would have to stay a secret regardless of what they found, wouldn't it? The Peacecraft-born vice foreign minister to the colonies and the Winner heir needed to maintain a certain separation, or the citizens of earth and the colonies were likely to become nervous. And their own credibility would be stretched, if it were revealed that the former Sanq queen had fled to the colonies and abandoned her family.

So. Whatever they found would be for their own peace of mind alone. Somehow, that made it easier to stomach. That was reasonable, wasn't it? She would find the answers, if only so that she could lay the family she'd never known to rest.

She really needed to get this off her chest. She stared at the mirror for another long minute, then abandoned it to flop down on her bed and flip on the vidphone. Only one of the Gundam pilots could be trusted with such a delicate subject...and one of those pilots had been privy to all her confidences for the past two years. 

She forgot, when she sent the communication, that it was a ridiculously late hour on L2, a time when most respectable people would be asleep. Fortunately, it was not a respectable person who answered the phone.

"Hello--Relena?" Duo Maxwell rubbed the sleep from his eyes, looking only a /little/ bleary, wisps of hair escaping his customary braid to float around his face. "What's up?"

"Can I talk to Heero?" she asked, annoyance rising in her chest when he shook his head.

"Sorry, he's not here. He's out on a delivery, won't be back til Monday." Duo's head tilted, his eyes narrowed, assessing her. "You look stressed," he said after a moment. "Something wrong?"

She shrugged, willing her face into a neutral mask that would have fooled anyone /except/ the king of Masks himself. "I just wanted to talk to him about...some things."

"Well...." Duo shifted, his face wobbling on the screen--probably getting comfortable, though it was hard to tell on the small monitor. "Anything I can do for you instead, Relena? Contrary to popular belief, I can shut up and let other people talk on occasion."

Relena tried to keep her surprise from registering on her face. Talk to Duo? She considered. She'd never given too much thought to Duo after their first auspicious meeting--he and Heero had apparently resolved their difficulties, because they'd been best friends the next time she'd encountered them. From then on, that had been just what she considered him--Heero's friend, a sidekick perhaps, but hardly an entity in his own right. That was probably why it had hurt so much when Heero had elected to stay on L2 with Duo after the war and help him run the scrapyard with Hilde. The three of them seemed to be doing well together as friends and business partners, and Relena had felt abandoned.

She'd gotten over it, in time. Heero was right in his instinct. Without the conflict to keep them together, they had too few common interests, and the few dates he'd agreed to had hardly been satisfactory for either of them. They cared for each other, that was no secret, but it was hardly the passion that great love affairs are made of, or even the deep connection Trowa and Quatre had for each other. It was, she'd been finally forced to admit, puppy love that had evolved into friendship. That was all.

She had stayed friends with Heero. It had never occurred to her that Duo might want to be her friend too.

"Thanks," she said, realising Duo was waiting patiently for her to stop considering and either talk or hang up. "I would like to talk, if you don't mind...."

"Not a bit." He grinned at her, leaning closer to the screen. "I'm a night person, and since I've got the place to myself..." He shrugged. "So let's hear it."

And Relena, keeping her voice low, began to explain.


	5. Chapter 4

*********

Long Lost

Disclaimer: I still don't own GW or any of its characters. I tried, but Evilnmalice outbid me. (Fortunately it didn't pay up, so it doesn't own them either.)

Warnings: None

Pairings: so far, only 3x4, we'll see how things develop

Archive: Desolation Angels. Previous parts can be found at http://www.dreamwater.net/ashura/LongLost.html

************

Chapter Four: The Substance of the Heart

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Quatre had come to the conclusion he would never be entirely comfortable with his lover's employment. It was one thing, risking life and limb in defense of peace, the earth, and the colonies. It was another to stand against a wall and let someone throw knives at you, and no matter how much Trowa trusted Catherine, Quatre was never going to relax when he watched it.

So, to the great amusement of the six-year-old sitting next to him on the bleachers, he kept his eyes closed through most of the act.

He opened them to the sounds of cheering, and, comforted by the fact that Catherine's aim had once again proved true, let the crowd carry him out of the circus tent til he could make his way past the sideshow and search out his lover. The lion cages were usually a solid bet--since the creatures preferred Trowa to any other two-legged being, he was usually the one to feed them. Quatre hovered there, just out of reach of any stray teeth or paws, until he spotted a familiar tall figure in the crowd.

"Trowa!" he called, rewarded by the widening of wood-green eyes as his lover hurried to reach him.

"Quatre?" The brilliance of Trowa's smile dissolved any doubts the blonde boy might still have harboured about coming to find him, though concern quickly replaced it. "Are you all right? Is something wrong?"

Quatre shook his head. "Everything's fine. Well, mostly fine. I want to talk to you about something, later." Trying to reassure Trowa that there was no immediate emergency without diminishing the significance of what he /did/ need--that was the trick, and he was too keyed up to be delicate. "I just needed to see you."

The lions were forced to wait several more moments for their meal as Trowa pulled him close and kissed him eager hello. "I'm glad you did," he said simply, and Quatre wondered how it was possible that any one person's presence should be able to calm him so thoroughly.

"What do you want to do while you're here?" Trowa asked, later, when the lions had been fed and the pair walked, hand in hand, toward the small trailer he shared with Catherine. "A bunch of the performers are having a get-together later, if you want to go." He grinned almost shyly. "It'll probably be very loud and they'll all be drunk, but they're good people. Or we can hide out in the trailer together--you said you wanted to talk about something? Or find something else to do, just the two of us." 

Quatre's mind began calculating the pros and cons of each option. He did want to explain the situation with Relena to Trowa, but he couldn't deny the temptation of indulging in something the two of them had never had frequently--a real date. "What would you like to do, Trowa?" 

The taller boy laughed, squeezing his hand tenderly. "I'm just really glad you're here. I promise I'll be ecstatic no matter how we waste the rest of our night." His bright smile turned wicked, and he added lightly, "especially if you end up in my bed at the end of it!"

Once, Quatre might have blushed at that, now he only feigned indignance. "I certainly didn't intend to sleep on the floor," he said haughtily. "The only question is, where will /you/ sleep?"

"Imp," said Trowa, and stopped right in the middle of walking to pull him close and kiss him again.

In the end it was decided--the pair of them would hole up in the trailer while Quatre said his piece, then they'd go track down the rest of the performers. Trowa assured Quatre that the festivities wouldn't really start until well after dark anyway, when everyone would be well and drunk. Catherine, after saying hello to Quatre, had discreetly volunteered to go into town and leave them to their own devices for the evening. Trailers were not made for privacy; only the illusion of it.

"So," Trowa finally began, setting the kettle on for tea and curling himself around Quatre on the faded, battered sofa, "what's on your mind, oh love of my life?"

Quatre leaned back against him, nestling into the hollow of his lover's neck, pausing to revel in the rhythmic pulse of the heartbeat against his back, and then began to explain. Trowa listened silently--he was always good at listening, his arms wrapped comfortably around Quatre's chest until it became imperative to get up and turn off the teakettle.

"So," Trowa summarised, as Quatre watched the honey drip in a long gooey line from the spoon into his cup, "Relena is your half-sister. Your mother had her, disappeared to L4, married your father--we assume--and had you, and the two of you would just like to figure out why."

"It sounds simple when you put it like that," Quatre pouted, finally giving up and stirring the honey into the tea. "But yes, that's essentially all. We--we already decided we can't make it public, but I needed to see what you thought, Trowa. I need you to put my head back on straight."

Trowa leaned close, his fingers stroking Quatre's chin, eyeing him appraisingly. "I think your head's on just fine," he declared after a moment, and Quatre stuck out his tongue. "Well, I do. You've already got your course of action planned, and I think you've dealt with it very well. Both of you. It has to be a bit of a shock."

"What does?" Catherine called cheerfully, poking her head in the door. 

"Finding out you have a sister you didn't know about," Trowa answered, deadpan, and Catherine rolled her eyes.

"Right. Just wanted to let you know I'm going to the party. I'll see you both there later, right?" Her grey eyes narrowed, twinkling merrily. "Or should I just plan to stay away as long as the trailer's rocking? I'll be too drunk to notice when I stagger back in, I promise."

"Then you might see us," Trowa countered. "Who knows? If we're late you might see four of us...or six..."

Catherine made a noise suspiciously like a grunt and vanished, letting the door swing shut behind her. 

Quatre left off stirring the tea and sought out Trowa's arms again. "Will you help me look for the answers?" he asked, as if the conversation had never been interrupted.

Trowa's lips brushed against his hair. "Of course I will...you know love, it's a bit exciting, really. You've got a mystery in the family. It's like living in a trashy novel."

Quatre brightened. "That's true...it is a bit, isn't it? How does it end then? I've never really sat down and read one."

Trowa made a face. "You're not missing out on much. Cathy loves them. Because they're always guaranteed a happy ending."


	6. Chapter 5

*********

Long Lost

Disclaimer: I still don't own GW or any of its characters. I tried, but Evilnmalice outbid me. (Fortunately it didn't pay up, so it doesn't own them either.)

Warnings: None

Pairings: so far, only 3x4, we'll see how things develop

Archive: Desolation Angels. Previous parts can be found at http://www.dreamwater.net/ashura/LongLost.html

***********

Chapter Five: Path of Memory

***********

Relena had never really noticed Peygan looking old before. He'd simply always been there, ageless and eternal, offering her advice she didn't follow and comfort she'd never earned. Now he huddled in an oversized armchair pulled up close to the fire, dozing comfortably with a book lying open across his knee.

"Peygan?" she asked, breaking a silence dominated by the crackling of sparks in the fireplace, kneeling close to his chair on the hearth. "Can I ask you something?"

"Relena, child," he replied gently, the opening of his eyes his only movement, "when have you ever not?"

She smiled ruefully at that, nodding. "You're right. I'll just come out with it then. Peygan--do you remember my mother?"

His gaze, so dreamy and vacant only a moment before, darkened into acute alertness. "Of course, child, but what about her do you want me to remember?"

And Relena, who had composed and performed speeches that could make grown men applaud and put the world itself in tears, blurted out, "Why did she leave?"

Peygan looked startled, and he sighed, his fingers dropping to stroke gently through her hair. "Now, how did you find out about that?"

Relena's eyes fixed on her hands, twisting around each other in her lap. "Quatre looks like her. More than I do." Pleading, her gaze lifted, meeting his kind blue eyes. "We need answers. I was tiny. Why did she leave me? What are the missing pieces of thiis puzzle we've stumbled on?"

The hand dropped from her hair. "Relena, I wish there was more I could tell you." Peygan shook his head sadly, resting back into the depths of the chair. "Katrina was fleeing the Sanq kingdom, but I don't know why. Whatever made her leave, she never confided in me...and neither did your father. He was hurt, I think, but he told me nothing about it. Then...it was less than a year, when we heard she was dead."

"Childbirth," Relena finished quietly.

Peygan shook his head, his voice sad. "No. We here were told only that she had been sick...not what the true cause of her death was."

"But you knew?"

Again, that faint shake of silvered head. "No. I had suspicions, but only after I met Quatre Winner two years ago. The likeness, as you say, is remarkable. It made me wonder, but you've only just confirmed it for me now."

Relena sighed, resting her head against his knee, twisting a strand of honey hair through her fingers. "I used to think I didn't want to know anything about them," she began softly. "I was so angry with them for abandoning me, for giving me away--but it was the best they knew to do, wasn't it? The Sanq kingdom was falling apart before the war ever destroyed it."

Peygan nodded sadly. "I'm afraid so."


	7. Chapter 6

*********

Long Lost

Disclaimer: I still don't own GW or any of its characters. I tried, but Evilnmalice outbid me. (Fortunately it didn't pay up, so it doesn't own them either.)

Warnings: None

Pairings: so far, only 3x4, we'll see how things develop

Archive: Desolation Angels

**********

Chapter Six: Respite

**********

Quatre stirred into reluctant wakefulness, squeezing his eyes closed against the frenetic whirling of the room. Was it supposed to move like that? Sure, he knew the colonies orbited the earth, but they didn't /rotate/ per se, so why were the walls spinning? 

He groaned and pulled the blanket over his head. Some detached, mildly amused part of his brain--the part that had woken him up in the first place--noted that it was a blue blanket, frayed at the edges and near worn through, and that he wasn't in his own bed with its fluffy Eiderdown and feather pillows, but rather a narrow, badly beaten-up trailer bed with robots dancing around on the sheets. They were dancing a little too wildly for Quatre's taste, and he closed his eyes again.

As he adjusted on the small mattress, trying to evade the shreds of light that spilled insistantly through the worn spots in the blanket, his hand brushed against--skin. Bare skin, that conscious part decided, most likely someone's leg. 

One eye cracked open, just enough to peek. Yep, a leg all right. Two of them, in fact, connected to a pair of smiley-face boxer shorts, and a bare smooth chest, a couple of wiry arms, and a mop of very messy dark brown hair that covered a sleeping face.

Aha, thought that little conscious part of Quatre's brain, quite pleased with its own cleverness. This must be Trowa's bed. He liked Trowa's bed. Pity, really, that he couldn't remember how he ended up there. His mind twisted itself into little knots, trying to recall the previous night's activity. Just in case there ended up being a quiz on it today...or in case somebody mentioned it...or if he'd done something really embarrassing. It's never a good sign when one can't remember how they got into bed.

He did recall, however vaguely, being called to judge a contest involving drunk people taking clothes off while balancing on the high wire. He was fairly certain Catherine had been among them, though he couldn't remember if Trowa had or not. He was reasonably certain there had been no casualties. He remembered a girl with purple hair giving him something bright red to drink--or was the hair red and the drink purple? He wasn't quite sure--that tasted sweet, like several kinds of berries, and made his insides feel wonderfully fuzzy.

He stopped thinking quite abruptly when the telephone rang. No, it didn't ring. It screeched at the top of its electronic lungs like a vengeful, dying demon. Quatre squeezed his eyes shut and pretended to be asleep. Trowa jolted awake next to him, whimpering under his breath as he disentangled himself from the sheets and crawled out of bed.

Quatre just wanted the horrible noise to stop. He'd never heard a phone ring so loudly in his entire life. Come to think of it, entire Oz bases, mobile suits, and towns had blown up with considerably less racket.

"Quatre...." The blanket peeled away, Trowa's fingers stroking down his face. That was pleasant, at least. "Wake up, love, Relena's on for you."

Quatre turned his face into the pillow. There, now he was invisible. "Mmffl. Lllgbbn." 

Trowa chuckled, softly enough that it didn't cause too much pain. "I'll take a message, love, but stay awake for a few minutes and I'll find you some aspirin. You're going to need it." The normally-silent padding of his bare feet across the floor echoed in Quatre's ears, eliciting another moan. Aspirin, yes. That was a good plan. He managed to convince his skull to relax, and by the time he'd accomplished this remarkable feat, Trowa was sitting on the edge of the bed holding out a glass of water and two small pills. "Here. Drink all the water, it'll make it go away faster." 

Quatre swallowed obediently, trying not to let the water dribble down his chin. "What did Lena want?"

"To talk to you. She's on L2 with Duo, they're following up some leads on their own and waiting for Heero to get back. She talked to Peygan, but she said she'll wait and tell you when you're feeling better."

Quatre winced. "Did you tell her...?"

"That you're hung over?" A ghost of a smile tickled Trowa's lips. "Of course. Was it supposed to be a secret?"

Quatre groaned, thrusting the empty glass into his lover's hands and snuggling into the blankets again. "Great," he grumbled, a faint and weary attempt at a joke. "I had a reputation, once...now it's all blown to shreds because I got drunk at a circus party."

"Don't worry," Trowa offered comfortingly. "You're a very cute drunk. And most of the rest of them won't remember either. Even if they do, they all love you to death. You'll be closer to them for the ordeal."

Quatre couldn't help but notice the wicked gleam in Trowa's green eyes, and pulled the blanket over his head. "Next time you share gossip about me, Trowa, I'm telling Heero you have robot sheets."

Trowa leaned close and kissed his forehead. "Go back to sleep, Quatre."

Quatre, despite the vague, numb feeling in his arms and the fact that he couldn't keep his eyes open, made a wild grab to pull Trowa down with him. "Not sleep...c'with me..."

Trowa, being a kind soul, didn't actually laugh out loud. "Later, little one, I have plans for you. Right now you need to sleep this off."

"Aw...awright..." Quatre, disappointed, nuzzled into the pillow as Catherine stuck her head through the curtain that separated Trowa's room from hers. Her frazzled auburn curls formed a disheveled halo around her pale face, and bloodshot eyes narrowed against the light.

"Stop makin' so much goddamn noise," she grumbled irritably. "By all that's holy, Trowa, just because you didn't drink...let the rest of us suffer in peace, will ya?"

Trowa gave a much-belaboured sigh, pulling on his jeans. "All right, all right. I'm not wanted. I'll go for a walk. Maybe when I come back there'll be humans in this trailer again."

Catherine growled. 

"Or not," Trowa said cheerfully, kissing them each once and vanishing out the door.


	8. Chapter 7

*********

Long Lost

Disclaimer: I still don't own GW or any of its characters. I tried, but Evilnmalice outbid me. (Fortunately it didn't pay up, so it doesn't own them either.)

Warnings: None

Pairings: so far, only 3x4, we'll see how things develop

Archive: Desolation Angels.

************

Chapter Seven: Council Meeting

************

It was a meeting of the best and brightest, of war heroes and world leaders. And it was taking place in Relena Darlien's basement. The Vice Foreign Minister herself perched cross-legged atop a table, twining a strand of honey hair around her fingers. In front of her, Duo had turned a chair backwards and sprawled across it, leaning folded arms across its back. Heero, Quatre and Catherine had scattered themselves about the room, and Trowa leaned against one wall in what had long become known as his favourite 'thinking pose.'

"Right." Heero popped open his computer and switched it on, drumming his fingers impatiently on the casing as he waited for it to load. "Anybody have information for the group before I show you what I found?"

Duo, Trowa and Cathy shook their heads. Relena and Quatre looked at each other and shrugged.

"Well...neither my brother nor Miss Noin knows anything," Relena offered. "They were both too young. Peygan said she was running from something going on in the Sanq Kingdom, but it was never made public." She sighed, resting her chin in her hand. "Sorry. Not much to go on, there, I know. I was thinking I could go back to the--to the Peacecraft mansion, where I found the picture. Maybe there would be something--letters, maybe. Journals. Records."

Heero nodded. He took his role as organiser of this mission quite seriously. "That's a good idea. Quatre?"

The blonde boy shook his head. "I asked Iria, but she was on Earth at the time. They only had one conversation. Most of my sisters didn't even know her...we're not exactly the closest family in space."

Heero nodded again. "Nobody does. They kept it out of the press, too. I've been searching for three days and this is the only thing I found." As his computer finally ceased whirring, he tapped a few buttons and words scrolled across the screen. "Here--this was published on page 16 of section D of the Sanq capital's newspaper. 'Her royal majesty, Queen Katrina, is planning a sabbatical following complications in the birth of her daughter the Princess. The Queen will be staying in the space colonies, as a guest of longtime friends of her late brother.'" 

He finished, and passed the computer to Quatre to read. "That's it. It took me so long to find this, I haven't had a chance to look up information on the brother yet. I'll do that next."

"So we split up into teams?" Duo suggested, taking the computer from Quatre and passing it up to Relena. "Say...Trowa goes with Relena and Quatre to search the castle, and Heero, Cathy and I can hit the libraries and see what we can dig up there." 

A low murmur of conversation finally ratified and confirmed the plan. "Right. Then you three get going...it's a long drive back to the mansion, you know. The rest of us...Heero, you said you're on the brother?"

Heero arched an eyebrow at Duo's sudden takeover of the mission plans, but nodded. "Hai."

Duo just grinned at him, the way only Duo could. "Great. And since you're a one-man-army all by yourself, even when it comes to hacking, that leaves me and Cathy to hunt through whatever was going on in the court at the time and see what she was running from."

Heero, in the midst of typing, paused and looked up. "/You/ and /Catherine/ are in charge of analysing court life?"

"Now, now..." Catherine grinned, easing out of her chair and leaning over his shoulder to see what he was typing. Heero tolerated it remarkably well, being himself. "Just because we're of the common stock ourselves doesn't mean we can't /read/, Heero."

"Looks like they're off to a great start already," Trowa murmured, as Relena ushered him and Quatre out the door. "I suppose I'm driving?"

"Please?" Quatre asked hopefully. "We want to get there fast."

Relena made a face. "Actually I'd like to get there in one piece...I've seen you drive..." She shrugged, then, an exaggerated motion that matched the twinkle in her eyes. "Oh well. I suppose courting death once more can't hurt. Let's get going."


	9. Chapter 8

*********

Long Lost

Disclaimer: I still don't own GW or any of its characters. I tried, but Evilnmalice outbid me. (Fortunately it didn't pay up, so it doesn't own them either.)

Warnings: None

Pairings: so far, only 3x4, we'll see how things develop

Archive: Desolation Angels.

***********

Chapter Eight: Ghosts Whispered

*********** 

Relena gripped the back of Quatre's seat with white knuckles as Trowa spun them around another corner on two wheels.

"Got your seatbelt on?" the acrobat asked belatedly.

"As if I wouldn't," Relena glowered. "You really /do/ think you're immortal, don't you?"

Trowa shrugged, his expression bland, and brought Quatre's E-type to a screaming halt on the Peacecraft mansion's lawn.

The blonde scowled disapprovingly as he opened the door. "I don't mind fast—I mean, it's supposed to go fast—but couldn't you go easier on the landing? I have awful visions of what could happen to my car." He offered a hand to Relena—who tried not to let on she was trembling—and helped her crawl out of the back seat.

"Sorry," Trowa said, finally apologetic. "I got a little carried away."

He slipped his hand into Quatre's, and Relena bit back a sudden stab of jealousy as the two boys followed her to the front door. It was, she decided, completely natural—the happiest lovers in the world would have difficulty matching the delighted radiance that all but emanated from those two. If she was envious of the happiness they'd found together, that she'd tried for but never quite reached—well, so would anybody. Somehow, they managed to sustain themselves on the glimpses and stolen nights their long-distance relationship could afford them. Trowa stayed with the circus because he truly loved it, but it kept him travelling. And Quatre, while he might have wished otherwise, could no more run off and join him than she could.

But they loved each other fiercely, any idiot could see that, and they kept on. And she was witnessing firsthand the way one would drop everything else without hesitation if they other needed him.

So who /wouldn't/ be jealous of a love like that?

"Relena...?" Quatre's soft voice broke into her thoughts, and she realised she was fumbling with the key in the rusted lock. "Are you all right?" 

She nodded, turning the key hastily, glancing back at them as the mechanism creaked reluctantly open. 

"Do you two ever fight?" she asked abruptly.

She could tell her question had startled them, but at the same time that it was not the first time they'd been asked. She watched the progression in both their eyes, from startled surprise to mild guilt to curiosity.

"Sometimes," they said at once.

Relena's gently-raised eyebrow relayed her disbelief eloquently enough, and Quatre chuckled.

"Not often, no. We don't see each other often enough to waste time fighting—no matter how nice it is to make up after," he added slyly, and Relena rolled her eyes. "But we've had our share, I promise you. Now, are we going in?"

Relena nodded, still not completely convinced, and ushered them inside. "I'm not quite sure what we're looking for," she admitted, as the dust and age of the place assaulted them. Trowa sneezed. "Journals, I suppose, records—books, disks, anything at all."

Trowa nodded-somehow, when he did it, it looked like a salute. "Anywhere in particular we should start?"

Relena shook her head. "I don't know where anything is, except what Zechs showed me last week."

"Then why don't we all stick together, at least until we have a better idea of the layout?" Trowa suggested, and Relena smiled at him gratefully, wondering if he didn't want to go off alone either, or if she was just that transparent to him.

It was hours, though, before they had acquired a "better idea" of the mansion's grounds. The former home of the Sanq royal family had been abandoned abruptly, and allowed over the years to degrade further into disrepair. What the young detectives found, then, were the charred, dust-covered remnants of the inhabitants' hasty retreat.

Quatre brushed his fingers across the faded spine of some aged book, its pages long-since damaged by smoke til they were unrecognisable. "How it must have felt," he said softly, "to leave all this behind...to run away, to know your home was falling apart...."

"I imagine," Relena agreed, "that it must have been incredible once."

"And full of people." Trowa added his nostalgic whisper to theirs. "Did you stop to look at the ballroom as we passed? You can tell it was spellbinding—you can almost see them there, still, in a really strange way...."

Three solemn nods, before they resumed their search anew, dispelling the sleeping ghosts of an age long-ended that hovered in the shadows.


	10. Chapter 9

*********

Long Lost

Disclaimer: I still don't own GW or any of its characters. I tried, but Evilnmalice outbid me. (Fortunately it didn't pay up, so it doesn't own them either.)

Warnings: None

Pairings: so far, only 3x4, we'll see how things develop

Archive: Desolation Angels. 

*********

Chapter Nine: Distraction

********* 

A small sound of frustration escaped Heero's throat as he fixed his computer screen with a withering glare.

Unfazed, it continued to blink brazenly at him:

NO MATCH FOUND.

"Still nothing?" a soft soprano inquired wearily from where Catherine curled with a small stack of old magazines on the couch. Despite a brief afternoon stint in Relena's basement, their headquarters was a suite Quatre had rented for them all in a hotel—it would have been impossible to keep their search discreet if all give of them had stayed with Relena, who lived with her brother, Peygan, and Miss Noin.

Besides, neither Quatre nor Heero had ever really become comfortable with Preventer Wind, the peacetime Zechs Merquise.

So now, with Trowa, Quatre and Relena off searching the Peacecraft mansion and Duo still scouring libraries, Heero and Catherine conducted their research in relative quiet and with dauntingly little result.

"Still nothing," Heero confirmed. "It shouldn't be that difficult, all I want is a genealogy record to get Katrina's brother's name."

"Romafeller wiped a lot of Sanq records," Catherine explained, and Heero looked up at her in surprise. He hadn't realised she paid that much attention to the politics that surrounded the war. She caught the look and let out an irritated sigh. "I repeat, I'm not completely ignorant."

"I know you're not. I'm sorry." Heero scowled into his screen at having been so readily caught. "But I didn't know about that."

Catherine shrugged. "Dorothy Catalonia mentioned it once." Her grey eyes narrowed in thought, and she paused, her fingers frozen in mid-turn of a crinkled page. "You know, she said something else the same night...Heero, why not run Catalonia and Khushrenada, if you can't get Peacecraft?"

"Huh? Oh, why not?" Heero's fingers flew, and words began scrolling down his screen again. "Any idea what I should be looking for?"

Catherine had her head bent over her pile again, flipping frantically through pages. "I will in a minute—just narrow it to those in the right age bracket...."

Heero, more than a little impressed—though he would never have admitted it—stole a glance at her past the computer screen as his fingers, long-since accustomed to typing without input from his eyes or conscious mind, processed the search requirements. He wondered, however idly, if the secret to the circus siblings' bond was really no more than the ability to move gracefully in impossibly tight jeans. On either one, it was distracting. Tousled auburn hair fell haphazardly around her face as she bent to the stack of magazines, brushing against her shoulders and the soft green sweater that draped her frame. A few loose strands clung there, glistening golden-red in the light that filtered through the window.

Heero, normally trained to notice such detail only out of tactical necessity, wondered where these observations were coming from, and how long he'd been having them without noticing.

Quite a while, his subconscious informed him. You just weren't paying attention.

"Louis," Catherine said abruptly, sliding off the couch with a satisfied sigh. "Louis Catalonia. Look for something about him in a duel with Philip Cressida."

There /was/ something vaguely familiar in that, and Heero's furious typing was rewarded when colour blossomed on his screen and took the form of a photo-capture of a dashing, handsome, smiling young man with white-blonde hair and pale blue eyes. 

"I think we're onto something," he said, suddenly quite conscious of Catherine's proximity as she leaned across his shoulder to better see.

"Now we work backward," she suggested, sounding pleased. "That's Katrina's brother...now we look for his connection to Quatre's father."

"It might take a while," Heero cautioned, noting that while there was more information on this lead than any they'd yet found, he had to expect that not all of it had escaped Romafeller's purging.

Catherine shrugged. "So I'll put coffee on." Heero's eyes continued to follow her as she padded to the kitchenette, berating himself all the while.

Life with Duo and Hilde had been making him soft. This was a /mission/. It was no time to let himself get distracted!

But really...after years of soldiering, one failed attempt at a relationship, and Duo's constant badgering about how abnormal he was, it felt kind of nice to be distracted.


	11. Chapter 10

*********

Long Lost

Disclaimer: I still don't own GW or any of its characters. I tried, but Evilnmalice outbid me. (Fortunately it didn't pay up, so it doesn't own them either.)

Warnings: None

Pairings: so far, only 3x4, we'll see how things develop

Archive: Desolation Angels.

************

Chapter Ten: On the Path of Truth  
************

Duo let out a sigh and slumped onto the table. He was surrounded by a pile of yellowed newspapers and tabloid magazines, and the dust was making his nose tickle.

Duo decided he'd earned break. Shoving the pile aside and fumbling in his pocket for cigarettes, he abandoned the realms of twenty-year-old court intrigue for the damp, musty autumn air.

He lit a cigarette as the library door swung shut behind him, ignoring the pointed glare of a young mother who was ushering her child out of a nearby car. Smoking was hardly the most death-defying thing Duo had ever done, and despite Heero and Hilde both nagging him about it incessantly, he wasn't inclined to feel apologetic over it.

He punched his access number into the public phone that stood sentinel near the door. It rang at least eight times before the visual receiver clicked on to reveal Hilde, wrapped in an oversized t-shirt and hastily toweling her hair. "Yes—oh! Duo!" A sigh of relief at the familiar, unthreatening face of her roommate. "How's it going?"

"Dusty," Duo proclaimed, wrinkling his nose. "I'm taking a break, thought I'd call and see how you were."

Hilde shrugged, tossing the towel aside and running her fingers through her short dark hair. "Business as usual, really. I get to drive the forklift a lot without Heero around to lift things."

Duo grinned. "So that's why you wanted to get rid of him...and I, as usual, tag along in his wake...."

Hilde snorted. "I think Heero would dispute that, and I for one know better. Not that I don't /like/ having the place all to myself," she added. "It's amasingly quiet here without you."

"Aw, but Hilde," Duo teased, "I would never have thought you /liked/ it quiet!"

"Well, I do—sometimes," she amended with a grin, before re-settling herself in front of the phone on what Duo recognised as one of their kitchen stools. "So why don't you tell me how the sleuthing is going? I'm dying of curiousity here!"

Duo grinned. "Oh, all right!" He flicked the last ashes from his cigarette and snubbed it out on the bricks of the library wall. "It's going pretty slowly, Hilde, to be honest. We've figured out that the Queen had Relena, took off for L4, and had Quatre, but that's about it. Oh—and that Mr Winner was an old friend of her brother's or something. That's the part we're looking for now."

Hilde nodded thoughtfully. "Let me guess—the old records have all been 'cleaned out' so there's nothing to find."

Duo nodded. "You got it. I'm in the library looking through old gossip columns."

She laughed. "Then get back to it! I have a scrapyard to run—I can see Murphy's truck pulling in right now, and I'm not dressed. Besides, you have scandals to uncover."

Duo grinned sheepishly. "Okay, okay, I'll let you go. See you when we get back, Hilde."

"Sure thing. Say hi to everybody for me. And keep me updated," she added impishly.

He tossed her a hasty mock-salute. "Ninmu ryokai!"

She clicked off the phone, and he got back to work.

"Sir?" A soft voice called to him as he settled back at the table. He looked up to see one of the librarians, a slim brunette barely older than Duo himself, cradling a plastic-covered periodical in her arms. "This might help you, I thought I'd bring it over for you to see."

"Huh? Oh, thanks—let's take a look." She set it down in front of him, flipping through pages til a bright full-colour spread opened in front of him. "This one."

THE DEATH OF A DYNASTY, it read. A NATION DEVOTED TO PACIFISM ENCOUTNERS A NEW KIND OF BATTLE.

It was an analysis of the Sanq Kingdom's demise—not comprehensive by any means, but informative nonetheless. Duo's eyes widened. "This is fantastic, thanks!"

The librarian smiled, her hazel eyes sparkling. It was, Duo, realised abruptly, the same look he'd seen on Wufei's face from time to time at the prospect of new knowledge. //_Huh...that's a thought. Wonder why nobody's called in Wu-man and Sally on this yet? Probably because he's never gotten along with Relena, so she wouldn't think to. Well, maybe if we need his help later_.//

"I'll let you know if I find anything else," the girl said, vanishing into stacks of books, and Duo bent over the magazine to glean what he could.

******** 

Empty-handed and subdued, Relena, Quatre, and Trowa piled back into the car they'd left parked on the lawn.

Quatre patted Relena's shoulder comfortingly. "We may not have found anything, but I'm glad we went," he told her honestly.

Trowa nodded. "Sure was something to see," he agreed, turning the key to bring the E-type rumbling to life. "You both buckled in?"

His white-knuckled passengers nodded. "Why do you keep letting him drive?" Relena asked in a low voice—not low enough, and Trowa laughed.

"Yes, Quatre, why /do/ you?" he asked teasingly.

"Because he doesn't get to drive my car very often," Quatre answered innocently, ignoring his lover. "Or /any/ nice car, for that matter—just those trucks the circus uses to cart things around in. And he likes it. And since I love him," he added dryly, "I foolishly trust him not to endanger my life."

"Besides," Trowa inserted smootly, "get Quatre here on a bad day, and he redefines the term 'road rage.'" 

Relena raised an eyebrow, and Quatre blushed.

They spun into the driveway of the house Relena shared with Zechs and Noin, and skidded to a screeching halt outside her door.

"Pick you up tomorrow?" Trowa asked as she climbed gingerly out of the backseat.

She made a face at him. "No thanks. How about /I/ pick /you/ up?"

Trowa looked disappointed. Quatre chuckled. "Suit yourself." She tossed them both a wave and disappeared inside.

Trowa reached for the gear shift and found Quatre's fingers lacing into his own.

"I think we should go see what else Sanq has to offer," the blonde said neutrally, though from the corner of his eye Trowa could see the smile threatening to break across his face.

"You mean we should stall," he responded, deadpan.

Quatre did grin at that. "Are you saying you don't /want/ to spend some time alone with me?" he demanded, trying to sound hurt and failing miserably.

Trowa lifted their joined hands to his lips, kissing his lover's fingers teasingly. "Of course not."

Quatre smirked, brushing those same fingers across Trowa's lips. "Then let's go into town for a while. I found a restaurant earlier I want to try with you, and I'm not ready to go back to the others yet."

"All right," Trowa said agreeably. "You navigate."

The car very nearly took flight, and Quatre chose to keep his mind off the possibility of imminent doom by tracing abstract patterns along the length of Trowa's denim-clad thigh. "I hope the others had better luck," he mused thoughtfully.

"Quatre," said Trowa reluctantly, "your doing that is making it really hard to keep my mind on driving."

Quatre considered carefully how much fun danger could really be.


	12. Chapter 11

*********

Long Lost

Disclaimer: I still don't own GW or any of its characters. I tried, but Evilnmalice outbid me. (Fortunately it didn't pay up, so it doesn't own them either.)

Warnings: None

Pairings: 3x4, 1+C?

Archive: Desolation Angels. Previous parts can be found at http://www.dreamwater.net/ashura/LongLost.html

********* 

Chapter Eleven: Promises

********* 

Relena watched out the window as the boys drove away, then tossed herself limply in the oversized armchair usually reserved for Peygan, poking idly at the dying fire.

She was tired. Tired and frustrated, because their search of her ancestral home had turned up nothing.

She'd get some dinner, and a hot bath—then she could call the hotel and see what progress the others had made. If, indeed, they'd made any.

She fished the worn photograph from her pocket and stared at it—the long, pale silky hair; the crystal blue eyes sparkling merrily even from the faded cracks of a ragged, torn portrait; the delicate, childlike face. She looked so young—younger than a mother should, especially a mother whose children had seen as much as hers had.

"Why won't you tell us?" she asked the picture wearily. "Mother, why won't you reveal your secrets?"

The photo, predictably, did not answer.

"Relena." It was her brother's voice, and she twisted in the chair to follow his movements as he crossed the room to kneel in front of her. "Can I ask you a favour?"

She nodded, a little startled. While they were attempting to turn mutual respect and a wistful desire for family into a true relationship, the siblings were still not as close as either would have liked. And her certainly wasn't inclined to ask her for things. "What is it?"

"Let the past go," he answered simply, closing her fingers around the photograph so he wouldn't have to see it. "Please...just let it all be over." His head dropped, and soft strands of platinum hair fell forward to obscure his face. "I know that you went back to the palace—and that it's not as hard for you as it is for me. I have a hard enough time moving on, Relena—I need to just forget, or I'll never have a life of my own."

Relena's heart wrenched, and impulsively she reached out to squeeze his hand. "I'm sorry." She sighed, brushed tendrils of hair away from his eyes. "There are a few more answers I need before I can let it all go—but then I will, Zechs, I promise."

"Answers?" he repeated, faint surprise darkening his blue eyes. "What answers?"

Sighing, she opened his fingers and pressed the photograph into his palm. "Zechs...who does that woman look like?"

He blinked at her, and at the picture, not understanding. "Like our mother, Relena, you know—"

"You see no resemblance to Quatre Winner?" she asked, cutting him off mid-sentence.

The pale eyes grew wide, naked surprise dominating Zechs' face as the significance of her words sunk in. "Only now that you mention it, but yes, it's unmistakable," he admitted wonderingly.

"That's the answers I mean," Relena explained softly. "I didn't mean to bother you with it—I know it hurts you to dwell on the past too much. But I need to know this, Quatre and I both do, if only for ourselves. That's why we went back, but we didn't find anything. Peygan, Miss Noin, Iria—nobody knows anything. But we're still looking."

"You talked to Noin?" he repeated, dismayed, shaking his head slowly. "She didn't mention it to me either...yes, Relena, it hurts, but I would have helped you if you'd asked...."

"Then why not help her now?" a new voice—Lucrezia Noin's strong, melodic alto—broke in from where the former Lieutenant herself leaned casually against the doorframe. "Since we've failed, as usual, to keep information from you."

Relena caught his hand again, her eyes hopeful. "Will you?"

Slowly, Zechs nodded. "Of course...of course I will." His sigh seemed to deflate him, his posture that of a soldier who finds one last battle still to be fought. He rose wearily, barely noticing when Noin slipped from her position by the door to take his arm. 

//_He looks so tired_.// Relena regretted, for a moment, having troubled him with her mystery at all. But it was his mystery too, by birthright, so shouldn't he know about it?

After all, Quatre was his brother too. And he had suffered more from the fall of the Sanq kingdom than she ever could have.

**********

Catherine and Heero sat side-by-side on the sofa, huddled around the laptop, clutching cups of tepid coffee and watching columns of insufficient information scroll down the screen. Several hours and two pots of Mills Bros, and all they had uncovered was that Philip Cressida--brother to Queen Katrina and schoolmate of one Haroun Winner--had been killed in a duel at the hands of Louis Catalonia.

And that said Haroun Winner had first met the adult Katrina at her brother's funeral.

Catherine's head drooped onto Heero's shoulder, and he caught the mug before it slipped from her fingers. He settled it onto the table, out of harm's way, and divided his attention between the data filling his screen and the exhilarating awkwardness of Catherine's cheek resting against him. By the time he had memorised all available statements regarding Philip's rather controversial death, he was beginning to lose interest in the former. His fingers, entirely of their own volition, had just twined gently around a dangling strand of auburn hair when the vidphone interrupted with a shrill cry.

Blearily, Catherine blinked awake, mumbling an incoherent apology as she lifted her head.

Heero smiled awkwardly. "I didn't mind."

Catherine returned the smile sleepily, rubbing at her eyes, and stifled a yawn. "Wanna get that...?"

Heero nodded, standing reluctantly and crossing the room to flip on the phone. Relena's face appeared on the screen, her eyes tired, her hair wrapped in a towel.

"Find anything?" she asked.

Heero shrugged. "A bit. I'll send it to you. Relena...are Trowa and Quatre still with you?"

She shook her head, only a little surprised. "No, we split up hours ago. They probably wanted to steal some time for themselves. They're not back yet?"

"Nope. Neither is Duo."

A ghost of a smile quirked at the corners of Relena's mouth. "So it's been just you and Cathy all night?" she asked, a little too pointedly for Heero's taste. He nodded slowly, hoping he had mistaken the glint in her eye. He couldn't be that transparent, could he? 

"I'll send you what we found," he repeated.

Relena chuckled. "It can wait til morning, Heero, I'm going to bed. It's after two in the morning, I just wanted to check in, since we turned up nothing at all. Except...."

His head tilted, curious. "Except what?"

She shrugged, a careless ripple of cotton-clad shoulders, as if whatever she had to say was of no real consequence. "My brother caught on to things. He says he'll help us, if we let him forget about it after."

"That should help," Heero conceded. "He has more idea what to look for than we do."

Relena nodded. "Exactly. Anyway, I'm going to bed. I'll be over tomorrow around--oh, say eleven? Since nobody's gone to bed yet?"

"I"ll be up by seven," Heero reminded her, almost sternly, and she laughed.

"Yes, I know, but nobody else will. Talk to you tomo--no, today. In about nine hours." The phone clicked off and the screen went dark, and Heero turned back to the couch to resume his search.

Catherine had stretched out along it, her head pillowed on her hands, her breathing even and rhythmic. Heero sighed and shut the computer down. Relena was right, it could wait. 

He carried his computer into the bedroom he was sharing with Duo. There was no sign his friend and roommate had even been there since that morning--bottles of haircare products were tossed haphazardly on the bed, which had never been made, and yesterday's dirty socks were scattered across the floor. Heero just shook his head fondly--once, Duo's cluttered habits had irritated him no end, but after prolonged exposure, he had learned to just accept that it was part of being Duo. When they'd gotten a house together, they'd just made sure it had three bedrooms, so that neither he, Duo, nor Hilde had to share, and could keep their particular section of their domicile in any shape they pleased.

Then Hilde had insisted on having her own bathroom, too, but somehow she had convinced them that was fair.

Heero tugged the duvet off his bed, and folded it in his arms. He padded silently back down the hall, and spread it gently over Catherine's sleeping form. He didn't need it anyway, and it gave him a pleasantly protective feeling to be doing this. Tucking the blanket around her, he let his fingers brush lightly down her cheek as he pulled away. 

"Oyasumi," he murmured, and then hurried back to his room to get ready for bed and investigate these interesting new feelings he was having. And if he didn't figure it out, maybe he could ask Duo in the morning.

***********


	13. Chapter 12

*********

Long Lost

Disclaimer: I still don't own GW or any of its characters. I tried, but Evilnmalice outbid me. (Fortunately it didn't pay up, so it doesn't own them either.)

Warnings: None

Pairings: 3x4, 1+C, 2xOC

Archive: Desolation Angels. Previous parts can be found at http://www.dreamwater.net/ashura/LongLost.html

*************

Chapter Twelve: Matters of Emotion

*************

The inside of a Jaguar E-type was not built for comfortable lovemaking. Still, a tipsy Quatre and unfathomably flexible Trowa managed to make the most of what they had. Sleepy and sated, they curled drowsily around each other, partially covered by Quatre's wrinkled shirt.

Trowa's fingers stroked absently through Quatre's damp hair. "I suppose we should head back."

Quatre made a small, half-conscious noise and roused himself, if not to movement then at least to speech. "I guess so...if we have to....This was a good night," he observed, wriggling against Trowa, who shifted beneath him.

"It was," his lover agreed, with an affectionate kiss to his temple. "But you're getting heavy, love, and I'm getting stiff."

"Oh, all right..." Quatre pretended to pout, but crawled off Trowa and into the driver's seat, fumbling for his clothes. "You don't think the others are worried about us, do you?"

Trowa shook his head, stretching as much as the small car allowed to tug on his jeans. "I'm sure they figured it out."

"I suppose you're right," Quatre agreed, squirming into the other seat. Trowa climbed over him to take the wheel, and however reluctantly, they sped away from the deserted road it had taken them so many hours to find, and back to the hotel.

All the lights were off when they reached the suite, and they did their best to stay silent as they crept in. It was a good deal easier for Trowa, who was not only conditioned to it, but completely sober. Quatre giggled as his knees bumped the couch and he almost lost his balance--flailed, and caught Trowa's arm just in time to keep from tumbling onto the body stretched out asleep there.

The body grumbled sleepily and pushed herself blearily onto her arms. "Wha--Quatre--??"

Quatre, clinging to Trowa, giggled his apology. "Cathy? Sorry...what're you doing out here?"

She shrugged, snuggling back into the cushions, a little disoriented herself. "I guess I fell asleep...Heero must've left the blanket. Now go 'way, Quatre, I'm sleeping. Trowa, take him away and put him to bed, will you?"

Trowa chuckled. "With pleasure," he assured her, as his sister's head vanished under the duvet like a turtle into its shell. He scooped the blonde into his arms, to prevent any possible damage to the furniture. Quatre tipsy wasn't normally a problem--Quatre tipsy, tired, and glowing could definitely present one. "Come on, it's late, let's go to bed."

"Okay," the smaller boy agreed easily enough, snuggling into his lover's chest. And by the time Trowa had laid him out on the bed, still in his rumpled clothes and untied shoes, he was already snoring gently.

"Hey, Heero!" The hiss came from entirely too close to his ear, and he pulled his pillow over his head in a vain attempt to escape it and get back to what was just starting to be a very promising dream. It was only Duo, after all. If it was important he'd keep talking, and if it wasn't--well, chances were he'd still keep talking, but there was always the slightest possibility he'd leave Heero alone and go back to bed. 

"Heero! C'mon, it's 7:15, I know you're awake. You're always awake." 

No such luck, then. Reluctantly, Heero extracted his head from beneath the pillow and blinked sleepy blue eyes at Duo--

Who was fully dressed, though his hair was unbraided and hanging around his shoulders. What was he doing up already?

"Duo? What the hell do you want? When did you get home?"

The former God of Death gave him an entirely too-perky-for-seven-in-the-morning grin. "Just now. Why aren't you up?"

Heero surrendered to forced wakefulness and sat up. "Because I didn't go to bed until three this morning, and I /was/ having a good dream. What about you? Where have you been all night?"

"Met somebody," his roommate returned with another grin, and Heero groaned.

"Duo, if you woke me up to tell me you had sex...."

Duo pouted. It was an expression he must have been practicing since infancy, and it never failed to reduce Heero to malleable mush. "Aw...if a guy can't share good news with his best friend, then what's the point? Anyway, I didn't wake you up for that. I was just telling you I was home--I really /did/ think you'd be up."

Heero did his best to turn a yawn into an exasperated sigh. "All right, who is she? Or is it a he this time?"

Duo flopped carelessly onto his bed. "Librarian. You'd like her, she's Japanese and smart. Anyway she helped me find a bunch of stuff on our little mystery."

"That's useful at least," Heero admitted, wincing as his bare feet touched the cold floor. He really was getting soft. "Do you plan on seeing her again, or does one of the rest of us need to take the library from now on?"

Duo made a face at him, for all it was half-hidden by hair. "It's not like that. Just a casual thing, like. We kinda left it open. Anyway I'm not avoiding her."

"That's good." Heero swallowed his sigh of relief that the teams would not be split up further--all of which brought him around to remembering just what /he'd/ intended to ask Duo about this morning. "Hey...can I ask you something?"

"Is it important?" Duo's voice was muffled, his face buried in his pillow. Heero yanked it out from under him.

"You woke me up, remember? Don't even think you're going back to sleep. Yes, it's important, baka, I'm asking you for advice. Doesn't that mean the world's about to end?"

"You are?" Duo blinked rapidly and put on his best "stunned" face as he rolled onto his back. "I'm sure it at least means Hell's weather report is changing. What's on your mind?"

Ah, now that was a very good question--and now that Heero had the opportunity, he was no longer sure exactly what it was he needed to ask. Duo waited patiently for all of eight seconds while he stumbled over his tongue, til he finally let out an exasperated laugh.

"This is about a girl, isn't it?"

Heero shot him an accusing glare.

Duo raised his arms in surrender, still laughing. "Well, come on--I can't think of anything else that would make you stutter and ask me--/me/--for advice! You're sure not after my impeccable fashion sense, or worried about the latest in incendiary technology!" He rolled upright, crossing his legs and propping his chin on his hands, ignoring his friend's normally potent glare. Then again, he'd been immune to that look for quite some time. "So who is she? Or am I wrong? Is it a boy?"

"No," Heero admitted, suddenly reluctant to part with the information. Maybe asking Duo hadn't been such a good idea after all. "Girl."

"Well?" Duo prompted, a flash of impatience in his violet eyes. "Who--oh!" An entirely wicked grin spread across his fair face, and Heero was certain there were horns growing out of his head. "Catherine Bloom, of course. You haven't talked to any other women lately, after all. So does she like you too?"

Heero did not need words to communicate. Expressions, especially with someone who knew him as well as Duo Maxwell, generally worked just fine--and this one said 'How should I know, moron? I'm asking you for help, aren't I?'

Duo, in return, rolled his eyes. "Just ask her on a date, Heero. Hell, you could even double with Quatre and Trowa--provided he didn't kill you--just to make it less intimidating."

Heero looked skeptical. "You think so?"

"Won't know til you try!" Duo chirped, flopping backward onto his bed again. "What can it hurt? Now what time are we all meeting to discuss results?"

Heero frowned, not entirely happy with the resolution of the former line of conversation. "Relena's coming over at eleven."

"Well then," Duo said, pulling back the blankets and snuggling beneath them, "I have a good...two and a half hours to nap yet. Three if my best, dearest friend in the whole entire world agrees to braid my hair for me," he added, batting his eyes hopefully at Heero, who threw up his hands and nodded. "Thanks! Night!"

And just like that, Duo was asleep and Heero was not, and he knew there was /no/ way he'd ever get back to the exact same dream.

Relena Darlien had picked up something of strategy during her political career. She arrived promptly at eleven, and she'd borrowed Dorothy's car. While not the same yellow monstrosity she'd driven during the war, Miss Catalonia did seem to retain an affinity for vehicles that could adequately house and feed entire an entire army. ("It's to make up for not getting a mobile suit," Duo had explained once, while safely out of earshot--they may have uncovered a heart inside that fair shell after all, but he didn't want to press his luck now that he no longer had a Gundam within easy reach.) 

It meant, of course, that there was no reason to take more than one car, and poor Trowa was denied the opportunity to wreak havoc on the streets for one morning. Relena shot him a smug, triumphant look--and winked at him. He pouted at her, and Quatre patted his hand.

"Where we goin'...?" Duo asked blearily, his nap not having been quite so restful as he'd hoped--mainly because Heero had insisted on making /just/ enough noise to keep him from falling completely asleep. 

"Breakfast," his utterly unapologetic roommate answered, tugging his braid.

"Oh! Food!" Everything was all right then. Duo was a man of simple tastes. "Pancakes?"

"If that's what you want," said Relena agreeably. 

It was a longer, but inherently safer journey than it would have been had any one of the pilots been driving. Duo cajoled Relena into finding a pancake house, and by the time they got there and found a parking place big enough for Dorothy's car, all of their bellies were growling. 

"We would have gotten here faster if you let me drive," Trowa began. Relena threw her sweater over his head, and he subsided into barely-audible, good-natured grumbling. 

Fortunately, the rest of the workaday world had already had their breakfast, and the place wasn't busy--within a matter of minutes they were seated, caffeinated, and well on their way to being fed. Things were looking up indeed.

"So," Relena began, "I've got some idea of how everything goes together, but I'll ask this first--what did everyone find?"

"Somebody give me your water, I finished mine," moaned Quatre, who couldn't understand how the tiny, teensy bit he'd had to drink the night before could make him wake up with such a headache. How come he was always the one to be hung over? Trowa slid his glass over with an affectionate smile. Much as he hated seeing Quatre miserable, he was an awfully cute drunk.

"Take the damn water, I want COFFEE," Catherine growled, sliding him her glass as well and reaching for the pot. Duo was too busy staring sleepily at it, utterly fascinated by the way the lid went up and down. 

Heero looked at Relena and shrugged. "I emailed it to you this morning." 

"We were with you," Trowa said simply. "So you know we didn't find anything."

"Which only leaves Duo," Relena said pointedly.

The boy in question looked up from watching the sugar dissolve in his coffee mug. "Oh. Right. I found a lot of stuff, actually." A snicker--which only Heero understood and everyone ignored--and he pulled a stack of photocopied papers from his jacket pocket. "Here," he announced, shoving it toward Relena and Quatre. "This explains a lot."

"So my father and the Qu--my mother's--brother were schoolmates," Quatre said, rubbing at his eyes. He didn't care for the way the letters liked to move around on the pages. Letters ought to remain in the same order, all the time, or how was one supposed to read them? 

"Philip Cressida," Relena confirmed, bent over the pages as well. "Heero and Catherine found that last night. And he was killed in a duel with Louis Catalonia."

Quatre winced. "Figures," he grumbled, then caught himself and tried to look apologetic.

"There's pictures of them, too," Duo said, stretching across the table to point out some of the pages. "Good looks run in the family, apparently. Anyway that issue is after the duel. It's got mini-bios on just about everybody, and statements from the family members after the whole thing was over."

"I found some of the same things," Heero agreed, glancing over the copies. "Louis Catalonia was adamant that the Peacecrafts' policies of total pacifism were outdated and useless. He thought they'd change their opinion after the duel, but both the King and Queen go on record saying that it only strengthened their ideals...as does Haroun Winner."

"The funeral was the first time he and Katrina met," Duo continued. "And that was only a year or so before Relena was born...whatever happened, it happened fast."

"Here's a picture of them together," Quatre interrupted, a curious tightness to his voice that prompted Heero to shoot him an uncharacteristically gentle look, and Trowa to squeeze his hand under the table. 

It was the only picture of his parents together that he'd ever seen.

*********


	14. Chapter 13

*********

Long Lost

Disclaimer: I still don't own GW or any of its characters. I tried, but Evilnmalice outbid me. (Fortunately it didn't pay up, so it doesn't own them either.)

Warnings: None

Pairings: 3x4, 1+C, 2xOC

Archive: Desolation Angels. Previous parts can be found at http://www.dreamwater.net/ashura/LongLost.html

*********

Chapter Thirteen: The Past Steps Softly

*********

"I wondered when you would come back, child," he said warmly, reaching out a hand to draw her near. Relena approached Peygan's chair and dropped to her knees beside it, clasping his cold hand in her own. "What questions have you for me then tonight?"

Relena slipped a folded paper from her pocket--one of the copies Duo had made of the magazine spread detailing the aftermath of Philip Cressida's death. "Did you know him?" she asked.

A long sigh left his lips, an exhalation of pain and regret and sorrow. "Yes, of course...." His hand strayed over the surface of the grainy print, as if history were almost within his withered fingers' grasp. "Where did you find this?"

"Duo found it. At the library." Relena rocked back on her heels, waiting, patient, til he could look up and meet her eyes without the sting of tears at their edges. "This was why Sanq was crumbling, wasn't it? Peygan...please, tell me what happened."

The old man merely nodded, closing his eyes briefly, as if to shield his mind against the onslaught of painful memories. Relena curled at his feet, the fire warming her back, til at last he began to weave the tale.

"When your mother first came to marry your father," he explained, "she was accompanied by her elder brother--a dashing, handsome, energetic young man who charmed the entire court as easily as she did. His head was full of fancies and adventures, and one of his fondest dreams was to leave earth and aid his friend and former schoolmate in running a resource satellite in the L-4 cluster.

"But he never did go...he was too attached to her, and to Sanq itself, and his duty would never allow him to leave. He was a very public person, the way Katrina was not--she never was comfortable with people prying into her affairs, poor thing. And pry they would, because she was the Queen, and the world seemed to believe that made her life public property. But Philip didn't mind the spotlight at all, and he directed it away from her and onto himself whenever he could."

"Is that why Louis challenged him?" Relena asked, enthralled.

Peygan shook his head sadly. "No...you've heard wrong, I'm afraid. It was Philip who challenged Louis. You see, Louis Catalonia had been a snake in the nest for a long time--he undermined the King's wishes, spread his poison through the court, told anyone who would listen how outdated and obsolete the wish for total peace was. He said the King and Queen were clinging to a crumbling hope and leading the nation to its own destruction. At first Philip wanted to try him for treason, but there was no concrete evidence. So he did the only thing he could think of, stupid as it was. He challenged him to a duel. And he was killed."

The firelight glinted off the telltale shine of tears in the old man's eyes, and Relena reached up to lay her hand across his arm. He patted it comfortingly. "It was a long time ago," he whispered, though she wasn't sure if he meant it to her, or to himself.

"Louis thought he had proved his cause when he won the duel," he continued, lost once more in the past. "But there he had miscalculated--the nation, indeed the world, was in love with Philip, and they were too deep in mourning for him to listen to anything the man who killed him had to say. The funeral was held in the courtyard at the mansion, child, and it was as full as the laws of physics allowed for. For days, people sat vigil with candles outside the gates." He flicked a hand surreptitiously across his eyes, as if she wouldn't notice he wiped away tears. "The funeral was the first time any of us met Haroun Winner. He stood by your parents and grieved with them, and added his speech to theirs when they reaffirmed their devotion to pacifism. And he made your mother promise to ask him for help or sanctuary should she ever feel threatened or need protection.

"But Louis still wanted a revolution, still craved war. He wanted the Sanq kingdom to be a military power, claimed the King could unite all the earth's nations under a single government if he only tried. But there would never be any moving your father, Relena, he was too committed. So Louis took his case to the Queen instead. I don't know why--she hated him as much as she was capable of hating anyone, I can't imagine she was civil, let alone receptive to his ideas. But she did...change, after that. I can only imagine she fought with your father, because they were never so close again."

"I remember that." The hard, tight voice from the doorway startled them both, as Zechs padded toward them in a loose shirt and trousers, his eyes all but hidden behind a mask of platinum hair. "I heard them arguing," he explained, never quite meeting their eyes. "You were a baby then, Relena. That was part of it--she wanted to kill him, you know. She asked Father too, and he refused. He said he was a pacifist and couldn't murder any man, even an evil one. Mother said it was only survival to kill a snake lying in your bed."

He took position against the wall, his arms crossed protectively across his chest. "She told him he must fight, whether he would or not, to protect his children. He said he could not, /because/ of those same children. She ran out of the room crying, and I have never forgotten it." Finally, sorrowful ice-blue orbs flickered to meet Relena's gaze. "And maybe, little sister, that is why I am the soldier and you are not."


	15. Chapter 14

*********

Long Lost

Disclaimer: I still don't own GW or any of its characters. I tried, but Evilnmalice outbid me. (Fortunately it didn't pay up, so it doesn't own them either.)

Warnings: None

Pairings: 3x4, 1+C, 2xOC

Archive: Desolation Angels. Previous parts (up til 10 only) can be found at http://www.dreamwater.net/ashura/LongLost.html

*********

Chapter Fourteen: Interaction

*********

"Quatre, you've read that same page twelve times. Please, just put it down. I'm hungry." Trowa flopped onto the sofa Catherine had only recently vacated, throwing his hands in the air. It had always been Trowa's policy, after all, not to just /say/ something if it was possible to use his entire body to express it.

Quatre, stretched out on the floor with one of Duo's copies, just shot him a wry look. "How is it that you stay so scrawny? You must eat twice your body weight in any given day."

Trowa, rather than return fire with one of any number of remarks, merely arched an eyebrow, and Quatre rolled his eyes. "All right, all right. We'll go eat."

"Somebody say food?" Catherine poked her head out of the bathroom door, her hair wrapped in a fluffy white hotel towel. "Don't go without me, okay? I'll just be a minute. I'm starving."

Quatre made an exasperated noise, and Trowa stifled a snicker.

The blonde looked up, eyeing Duo and Heero both suspiciously. "Well? Two is coincidence, three is a conspiracy, or so I'm told. Which is this going to be? Are you coming to?"

Duo, who was playing some noisy video-game on Heero's everpresent computer, just shook his head. "I'll stay here and have a sandwich. Kinda waiting in case I get a call....Heero?"

Heero looked torn. "No, I'll--ow! Duo!" he growled, massaging his leg where his unapologetic roommate had just kicked it. "I'll come with you," he finished lamely. 

"Conspiracy," Quatre repeated.

Duo grinned at him. "Definately."

Catherine chose that moment to emerge from the bathroom. Wet hair coiled like rivulets of dark fire around her shoulders, and a black silk shirt clung to damp curves, hanging loose over her jeans. "So where are we going?"

Heero let out a yelp as Duo kicked him again. 'Your mouth was hanging open,' the braided boy mouthed, mimicking the face he claimed the other had been making. 

It was probabl y best that these antics were lost on the rest of the room. "We had Italian last night," said Quatre dryly, "which means tonight it's Chinese or more breakfast. Wouldn't want to force Trowa to introduce some variety to his diet, after all."

Catherine shrugged, and Trowa made a face at Quatre behind her back. Heero, efficient as ever, was already tossing them their coats, and Duo made shooing motions with his hands. "Get out. All of you. Go. Leave me to play Planet Blasters in peace, will you?"

"Sure you don't want to come along, Duo?" Quatre asked, tossing Trowa the car keys. Catherine intercepted them mid-flight and shot her brother a glare.

"He's waiting for a girl to call," Heero explained, deadpan, ushering them all out the door.

"Cathy," Trowa was whining, "give me the keys...Quatre was passing them to me..!"

She twirled them on her finger and took off running. "Well I caught 'em! And I've never driven a Jag before...."

Heero wondered what he'd gotten himself into.

*******

Finally, the last eggroll was boxed up for later, a substantial amount of leftovers would be taken back to Duo, all fortune-cookies had been accounted for, and the sated diners left the restaurant, rubbing their bellies in satisfaction.

"I was thinking," Quatre suggested hesitantly, "that we could go for a walk along the waterfront before we head back? I mean, none of us get here all that often, it seems a shame to spend the whole time cooped up in the hotel."

Heero shrugged. "I don't mind," said Catherine, and Trowa just nodded and reached for his lover's hand. The waterfront was really a boardwalk, all but abandoned after dark, that stretched along the half-circle edge of the bay. They scrambled down the rocks, leaving the boardwalk behind, picking their way carefully along the crusty beach.

Heero felt a tug on his elbow as he landed, and turned--it was Catherine, and he thought at first she'd lost her balance, but she shook her head and motioned to the pair of boys ahead of them. 

"Drop back a bit," she said softly. "Let them have some time alone."

"Oh," Heero said intelligently, pausing next to her until Trowa and Quatre's shadowed silhouettes disappeared behind the rocks. 

"I know it seems like they haven't been apart this whole time," the girl continued, finally beginning light, careful steps along the shore, "and it's true, I guess. But they usually don't see each other for months at a time...they're enjoying themselves, and I'm glad they have a chance to."

"Oh," said Heero again, a step or two behind her--far too conscious of the slender knife-thrower in front of him to pass judgement on the lovelife of his other friends.

She shot a wry, crooked smile over her shoulder at him. "Still, I'm glad you're around to keep me company. Usually I'm trying to stay out of the way by myself."

Heero felt his face get abruptly warmer, and decided he was grateful for the lack of any light but the twinkle of the stars. "I'm sorry--I'm not very good company."

A chuckle, then. "Don't worry, you're here, and that at least means I don't look like I'm talking to myself. Ah--here. Come sit with me." She had found a tall, flat boulder protruding from the side of a bulkhead, and climbed spryly atop it. "Well--ew, it's a bit wet. Just to warn you." 

Heero followed her, prepared for the slippery damp of the boulder's surface, shedding his coat and spreading it across like a blanket. "There," he said with a shrug, settling next to her. 

Silence fell. Companionable at first, it stretched between them like taut rubber, ever more awkward, waiting for the right moment to snap.

Catherine laughed, light and unashamed. "Now I'm the one who's not very good company."

Heero shook his head, leaning back on his hands. "No, it's me. I'm not good at conversation, I just don't have the knack for it."

Catherine's delicately-arched eyebrow was barely visible in the darkness, but expressed only too clearly in her voice. "It doesn't bother me. I'm used to men who don't say much, Heero. You've met my brother?"

"Hn," Heero conceded.

"That's about right," she nodded, amused.

Silence again--but easier this time, freed from the strain of awkward attempts at conversation. And this time it was Heero who broke it. 

"I was wondering--"

She turned her gaze from the water, glanced at him, and he faltered. //Just ask her, Duo said. As if it were something easy. I ought to kill him on principle alone.//

"I wondered--" 

She was still looking at him, expectant, glints of light reflected in her grey eyes. He swallowed. //How is it that fighting a war can be so easy compared to asking a girl--//

"Would you go on a date with me sometime?"

It was childish, remedial, and entirely devoid of any sophistication or charm, but a quick glance downward revealed that jumping would not be a nearly sufficient method of self-destruction. Was it possible to simply fall over and die of embarrassment? And if it was, could it please happen /quick/?

A smile quirked the corners of Catherine's lips, visible even in the shadows. "Sure," she said casually. "I'd love to."

Heero's body--the pride of genetic engineering and product of years' worth of intensive training--finally remembered how to breathe.

******

Duo had just beaten the thirty-seventh bonus level of Planet Blasters when the vidphone buzzed to life. A quick check at his watch revealed that it wasn't nearly as late as he'd thought it was--only nine-thirty. He hurried across the room, Heero's laptop beeping protest at being so quickly abandoned. "Hello?"

He suffered a moment of disappointment--the face on the vidscreen belonged not to Akane, the librarian, but Iria Winner. "Hi, Duo. Is Quatre around?"

He shook his head, braid swinging. "Nope. They all went to dinner. I can probably find 'em if it's important."

"No, that's all right." Her blue eyes were ringed by weary shadows, and her entire face looked tired. "It's after three here, I'm heading to bed. But tell him and Relena--I've found something I think they need to see."


	16. Chapter 15

Well here it is--the chapter you've all been waiting for, where we get all the answers laid out at last. There'll be one more part--I want an epilogue to tie up a couple loose ends. But this is the big ol' climax of the mystery. *grin* I hope you like it.

Ashura

*********

Long Lost

Disclaimer: I still don't own GW or any of its characters. I tried, but Evilnmalice outbid me. (Fortunately it didn't pay up, so it doesn't own them either.)

Warnings: None

Pairings: 3x4, 1+C, 2xOC

Archive: Desolation Angels. Parts 1-10 can be found at http://www.dreamwater.net/ashura/LongLost.html

(11-15 will be posted there as soon as I have access again!)

********

Chapter Fifteen: Pieces Come Together

********

Duo rested is weary head against the cold metal framing the shuttle's porthole, hugging the end of his braid to his chest like a favourite toy. Wisps of matted hair protruded from his head, and shadows ringed his violet eyes, dark against his pasty skin. "Explain to me again," he moaned, "why this couldn't have waited til /after/ we slept?"

"Because," Quatre answered logically, "if we waited til morning, we'd be hitting lagrange-four at about three in the morning. This way we get in at dinnertime, and don't wake up my sisters."

"You can sleep on the trip over, Duo," Heero added sourly.

Duo grumbled under his breath, and Relena smiled at him sympathetically. "You don't have to come along unless you want to," she reminded him gently. "It's really only Quatre and I--and Trowa, I suppose--who have any real investment in this."

Duo summoned a sleepy, faded version of his best indignant glare. "Excuse me? Who here found half your answers while certain other folks were busy flirting?" he demanded, focusing the glare on the rest of the group. "I'm gonna see this through to the end too. I'll just be tired while seeing it!" He crossed his arms defiantly across his chest.

Relena stifled a laugh. "I wasn't telling you not to come. Just giving you an out if you wanted one." She covered a yawn of her own, her head drooping against Quatre's shoulder. "Besides, none of the rest of us have slept yet either."

"I'm not tired," said Trowa softly, his lips twisting into a smile as Quatre snuggled up against his shoulder. "Fortunately I'm not planning on moving, either," he added dryly, wrapping an arm around his lover as Relena made herself comfortable against Quatre's other side.

"Well I am. Tired, that is. Be my pillow, will you Heero?" Duo whined, cuddling up to his roommate without waiting for an answer.

"Do I have a choice?" Heero muttered under his breath, but he did let the braided boy nestle into his chest.

Catherine, on Heero's other side, chuckled. "Doesn't look like it." Watching the others drift off to sleep, she began digging through her pack for a book. "By the way--what is it Iria found?"

"It sounded like letters," Trowa answered, absently stroking Quatre's hair. "She started going through all Quatre's father's things when this all started; apparently she came across some things they'd never noticed before."

Catherine finally extricated _The Pirate Prince_ from her bag. "And that doesn't seem a little strange?"

Trowa shrugged his unoccupied shoulder. "They weren't really looking before."

"That's true," his sister agreed indifferently, flipping open her book. "By the way--if either of you want something to read, I've got extras."

Trowa donned a superior expression. "No thanks. I already know what happens in your books. There's a beautiful orphaned heroine sent off to live with rich relatives. Then there's a Mr Tall, Dark and Dangerous, and a Mr Boy-next-door. She falls for the first one, but he ends up being the same evil bastard responsible for killing her parents all those years ago, despite the fact he was ten years old at the time. Then the blonde fellow saves her just in time to live happily ever after."

Heero's amused eyes flickered from one sibling to the other as Trowa finished his summary of the romance-novel world and Catherine wrinkled her nose.

"You forgot the part about escaping arranged marriages," she informed him flatly. "Besides, /this/ is about pirates."

It was amasing how much expression Trowa could fit into a gently-arched eyebrow. "Let me guess. She's running away from the arranged marriage and the pirate captures her? Then falls in love with her, of course. And let's see...does he end up being the estranged younger son of some hideously wealthy nobleman?"

"You know," Catherine stated calmly, "you should really be nice to me, Trowa...you never know just when my perfect aim might start to go, and then where would you be?"

Somehow, Trowa didn't look intimidated.

"Actually," said Heero, almost meekly--and not exactly thrilled by the prospect of several more boring, wakeful hours either--"pirates sounds kind of interesting. Is there fighting in it?"

Catherine shot her brother a triumphant look. "Swordfights galore!"

Trowa rolled his eyes. "Heero, you're turning pathetic, you know that?"

Heero glared at him. Trowa just winked, and turned his attention to braiding miniature plaits in Quatre's silky hair.

*********

"I told you so," Trowa hissed to Heero under his breath as Iria led the small procession through the maze of hallways that made up the house she shared with Quatre and two of their remaining single sisters. 

Heero glared back at him, but his once-feared Death Glare was but a shadow of its former potency. "I didn't know it was a /kissing/ book," he growled. "I just wanted to read the swordfights!"

"Do you mind?" Quatre snapped irritably over his shoulder, and the boys subsided with muttered apologies. Since waking up--just before entering the colony--the blonde had been high-strung and antsy, a condition which only seemed to increase the closer they got to the study where Iria had stored her newly-discovered secrets. Relena, by contrast, had gotten quieter, staring pensively at her hands until her attention was forced away.

Trowa, Heero, Duo and Catherine were only along for the ride.

"Here we are." Iria ushered them into a study, scattered with old shoeboxes and files and scraps of nostalgia. "It's the box on the chair you want to look at...." She shifted awkwardly, then sighed. "I'll get out of your way."

"Thanks...." Quatre barely responded, dropping to his knees next to the indicated chair and lifting the box reverently. "Wow," he said after a long moment of silence. "I'm--I'm nervous now."

Relena swallowed. "I am too, a little. I don't know why--it's silly, isn't it? I mean, it's not like we can do anything to change it--but--" She sagged, and Quatre twisted to scan the line his friends formed against the wall. 

"Trowa--will you--?"

"Of course." Trowa strode forward, kneeling next to his lover, lifting the lid from the box and rubbing his nose against the assault of dust and age that tickled his allergies. "Do you want me to just pick something and read it, or..?"

Quatre and Relena nodded, and he complied--drew a folded, yellowed letter from the box, opened it, and began to read.

******

The story that had formed was simple enough, if heartrending. As Peygan had already explained, the Sanq kingdom was crumbling under the weight of its own beliefs, with Louis Catalonia doing everything he could do speed its fall. His faction, while it had lost some power after the duel with the world's darling Philip, was never completely eradicated, and its members dissipated into the Romafeller foundation after the kingdom's fall.

Haroun Winner had first met Katrina Cressida Peacecraft at her brother's funeral. They had fallen immediately, tempestuously in love, but according to their own letters, nothing had ever come of it but words. Still he extracted a promise from her--to come to him for help, or protection, if she ever needed it. When the foundation of the Sanq court began to crumble beneath her, he urged her to join him--"Come to me," he had written. "Come to where I can keep you safe. I can live without touching you, as long as I know you live."

And Katrina had held out as long as she could. The end came when Louis himself discovered her secret, innocent as it still was, and showed Haroun's letters to the King. In delicate script she wrote of the confrontation with her husband when Louis had left--"I am on the verge of losing my kingdom," he had said. "Am I doomed to lose my queen as well?"

"No," Katrina had replied. "The queen will stand by you forever...it's the lover you've already lost."

The temperature rose in the court, and relations between the royal couple grew more strained. In public, they presented to the world a single face and a single mind, but Katrina wrote to Haroun of the storm that pervaded their more private moments, of arguments and tears and a widening gulf that no amount of reconciliatory words could breach.

Finally, the enthralled readers reached the culmination of their search: a short note, written hastily and stained with tears--

Three simple words: "I need you."

*********

Quatre dragged a hand across his eyes as the letter drifted to the ground. Trowa sat next to him, still, an arm around his shoulder. Nearby, Heero did the same for Relena, a comforting presence even if he had no words, and Duo and Catherine looked on.

"So that's when she came here," Duo explained, flipping through the wornout pages of a musty scrapbook. "She started calling herself Quatrina Winner, but it looks like they weren't ever actually married. She stayed holed up in the house; hardly anybody outside ever saw her, and that was with a veil. Your dad doted on her, Quatre--I mean, look at all the stuff he kept. Must be everything she ever wrote to him, every picture anybody ever took...." He sighed, reaching across the motley pile to squeeze his friend's hand reassuringly. "And the rest you all know. She got pregnant, refused to have a test tube baby, and died having Quatre. There's only a couple more letters here. This one's from Giorgio--King Peacecraft--to his queen, and it's kinda bitter. I don't think he was dealing with it to well. And this one--"

Duo's violet eyes froze halfway down the page, and he swallowed. "Maybe one of you better read this," he said, slipping the paper from the booklet and thrusting it toward Quatre and Relena. "It kinda closes things up."

Relena took it from him, and Quatre eased from Trowa's embrace to lean over it with her. "Oh..." she whispered, and he began to read aloud.

//_My old friend--_

Words cannot express the depth of my grief at your news, but then, you of all people in the world are in a position to understand it. I feel my very soul has been ripped away, and what shreds remain are now ashes in a colony burial urn.

I accept your apologies and condolences with the good will they were intended. The game is over, and we are both the losers of it. Such is ever the folly of arrogant men.

The boy is, and remains, yours. Raise him well, I beg. As I have lose my soul, I stand to lose my kingdom as well, and already find I must surrender my daughter to be raised by someone else's hand.

...And still I pray that both these children live to see the peace we sacrifice our lives to strive for.

My heart is with you.

Giorgia//

His voice faltered, and silence fell. He turned his face into Trowa's chest, and his breathing ragged but controlled. Heero rested a hand comfortingly on Relena's shoulder, and her fingers sought out and twined around Quatre's hand.

"That's it, then," she said softly.

"We wanted answers," Quatre agreed, forcing a wan smile. "And we found them. I guess it's silly to get so worked up, isn't it?"

Duo shook his head, his customary grin flickering at the corners of his lips. "No it isn't. The rest of us all get teary over our pasts too, when we get to indulge in 'em."

Catherine nodded. "We've been there too," she reminded both Peacecraft siblings tenderly, "and got all emotional with a lot less proof, I promise you." She dropped a kiss on Quatre's forehead and winked at Trowa. "And didn't I promise a good ending?"


	17. Epilogue

Well, here it is--it's finally over! I hope you had as much fun reading it as I did writing it--this was really a blast! And I've actually finished a series! Woo!

So please, let me know what you thought!

Ashura

*********

Long Lost

Disclaimer: I still don't own GW or any of its characters. I tried, but Evilnmalice outbid me. (Fortunately it didn't pay up, so it doesn't own them either.)

Warnings: None

Pairings: 3x4, 1xC, 5xS, 6x9, HxOC (if it matters)

Archive: Desolation Angels. Parts 1-10 can be found at http://www.dreamwater.net/ashura/LongLost.html

(11-15 will be there too as soon as I have access again!)

*********

Epilogue: The Heart Laid to Rest

*********

****

Two years later:

"I thought family reunions were usually reserved for...well, family," Duo Maxwell remarked, braid swinging as he ushered Hilde Schbeiker and her toddler son Will into the Merquise family's expansive garden. "And half the people here, including us, don't qualify."

Hilde laughed, deftly catching Will in time to prevent him from tumbling face-first onto the cobblestone walkway. "Family's more than ties of blood. You especially, 'Uncle Duo,' ought to know that!"

"Well, yeah..." the former God of Death caught his adopted nephew and swung him into the air, evoking a chorus of ecstatic squeals. "That's true I guess. C'mon, let's go find Heero and make him feel guilty for ditching us!"

"Heathen," Hilde chuckled. "Don't you think we should find our hosts first and say hello?"

"Well, if you want to be all /polite/ about it and stuff," Duo grumbled, but changed his course for the tall form of Zechs Merquise standing in a solemn face-off with a barbecue. "Zechs looks like he could use a hand anyway."

"Don't offer," suggested a dry, lilting voice as Dorothy Catalonia appeared at his elbow. "He's been glaring at it like that since noon, and it's still not working. I think it's frustrating him." She grinned impishly. "You'd think that a party full of ex-Gundam pilots could at least get a hamburger to cook all the way, but no such luck."

"Let me guess," Hilde inserted smoothly. "You tried to help?"

Dorothy wrinkled her nose in the direction of the platinum-haired host. "Yeah. Like I said...don't."

"We'll just go say hello and nothing else," Duo promised. "Hey," he protested at her I-don't-trust-you look, "you know if anything that I have a healthy respect for my own hide. C'mon, Will. Coming Hilde?"

"Duo! Hilde! Glad you could make it! Goodness, Will, you're getting tall!" Lucrezia Merquise took her turn at swinging the toddler around in a wide circle, to his utter delight. "I want one," she confessed under her breath as she set the boy down.

"Want mine?" Hilde offered, the very picture of generosity.

Lucrezia considered. "Hmm...he's already out of the really messy stage...."

Not far away, Heero was glaring up at Trowa, one arm looped comfortably around Catherine's waist. "Hmph. You're just upset 'cause you're not needed anymore. I can stand still and not look scared just as well as you can."

Trowa did an admirable, if not completely successful, job of stifling a chuckle. "It's all /right/, Heero, you can have my job. There are plenty of other things I can do /besides/ being a living target." He winked at Catherine, who looked like she might spit up her beer with laughing any second.

"Don't get too worried," she said dryly, leaning up to plant a kiss on Heero's temple. "As long as Trowa's been enjoying what was supposed to be a /short/ vacation with Quatre, I don't think he's in any hurry to come back anyway."

"I hope not," Quatre chimed sunnily, approaching the trio from where he'd been socialising with Lady Une in some other part of the yard. "I rather like having him with me, I don't want to give him up yet."

Before another word could be spoken, a loud yell erupted from the garden door.

"KISAMA!!!!!!!!!!"

All eyes turned, all bodies spun, but the expected crisis proved to be nothing more than Wufei Chang, leaning casually against the motorcycle he'd drug in with him, wearing faded jeans and a shit-eating grin. 

"Just wanted to remind you all how much you missed me," he said, nonchalant, abandoning the motorcycle to join Zechs at the barbecue. "Sally should be on her way...say, do you want a hand with that?"

"And I thought I liked to make an entrance," Trowa grumbled good-naturedly under his breath.

"He's loosened up a bit," Catherine remarked. "Then again, I guess all of you have."

"It's your fault," Trowa and Heero said at once. "Well--and yours," Trowa added to Quatre, who pretended to be quite offended until Trowa agreed to get him another wine cooler from the icebox.

Relena managed to escape the conversational clutches of a pair of admiring Preventers agents to join them. "I'm hungry," she admitted, with a glare toward her brother's fight with Wufei and the barbecue. "Wish they'd hurry up and get that thing going before we all starve."

"Eat chips," Catherine suggested, jerking a finger toward a table spread with all the things that would, eventually, be used on the hamburgers, as well as an extensive variety of snacks. "Lots of chips. They could be at it for a while."

"Good idea!" Relena laughed. "I'll go get some--want me to grab you something? Anybody?"

"Me," Quatre said firmly, just as his stomach growled loud enough to prompt a laugh from Trowa. "I'll go with you."

They made a beeline for the table, intent on finding enough food to tide themselves over til either Zechs or Wufei successfully killed the other, or brought in a more efficient means of lighting the barbecue. "So how you doing?" Quatre asked her when they were out of earshot.

Relena shrugged. "Behind a bit on the gossip. I heard Trowa was staying you finally, but that's about it. Catch me up?"

"Well," Quatre began, sorting through a vegetable tray in search of radishes, "you might have missed out on the part where your brother and Miss Noin got married...."

One of said radishes thumped against his nose. "Actually," Relena commented, trying to look innocent, "I was there for that one. Make yourself useful and tell me something I don't know."

Quatre shrugged, grinning. "All right, all right. Trowa moved in with me, because Heero was suddenly around to take his place. He moved to L3 about a year ago." He shot a conspiratorial glance over his shoulder toward the trio they'd so recently abandoned. "And let's just say there's a reason she's eating all those snacks."

Relena's eyes widened. "Is she--really?"

Quatre winked. "Would I lie to you?" He paused to pop an olive into his mouth before continuing. "Let's see...Hilde was pregnant when Duo and Heero got back to L2, but the guy didn't stick around. That's where the rather precocious little person our sister-in-law is holding comes from. Wufei is engaged to Sally Po, but we all saw that coming ages ago. And you see more of Dorothy than I do, so I won't hazard a guess as to what she's been up to. That help?"

Relena chuckled. "Immensely. I'm sorry I'm so behind on it all." 

Quatre hugged her impulsively, almost capsizing the plate of edibles she'd spent the past several minutes stacking. "Don't worry about it. We love you anyway."

Relena wrinkled her nose. "A lot of good that does me...we're related, remember? Besides, Trowa'd kill me."

Quatre quelled a rather horrified expression and pocketed the remainder of the radishes. "Very witty. Come on, let's get back to the party."

And a burst of flame alerted them that the barbecue had finally been started successfully.

"I see Nataku has more domestic uses after all," a voice suspiciously like Zechs' said calmly.

"Nataku," another voice--Wufei--said solemnly, "can be the goddess of hamburgers if she wants to be."

~Owari~


End file.
